You must say yes to the mess - a review

by Jasper “Jaz” Joyner

It started as a phrase. A brilliant one, spray-painted audaciously on a concrete wall in Marseille, France in 2016. Then, a t-shirt slogan by non-binary artist Io Asunder and then, well, a significant part of the queer lexicon. Likely because for many gay and queer folks now, the latter is incredibly simple depending on where you are.

“Be gay, do crime.” Easy! Watch this: *blinks.*

There’s something quite freeing about the phrase. It’s like an anti-capitalist directive to live boldly, despite what much of society tells us about our gayness, queerness, and how that manifests. No wonder clever editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley created an entire anthology inspired by the iconic phrase called Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos. It’s a fiction book featuring 16 different queer authors’ takes on the prompt, and it is nothing if not messy.

It starts out with a lesbian couple stealing a baby in an alley, and ends with a fed-up lot of 40-something Latine queers who—in a last-ditch effort to save their communal Los Angeles home from gentrification—venture on a small town bank-robbing tour. The latter is endearing at times as far as crime stories go as this shroom-loving crew clearly love each other. And it even features a fantastical beach scene in which these characters go full creature mode in the sea. But it’s also impossible not to compare such this tale to film classics like Set it Off with not nearly as happy endings. Because the lightheartedness of this final story, called “Operation Hyacinth,” is somewhat a theme throughout the book.

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Many of its “crimes” are minor or moreso internal failings that toe the moral line. Like one lesbian who enters children’s coloring contests and eventually wins a vacation to a theme park. Characters are often forced to question their albeit questionable behavior, and we spend a lot of time inside their minds as they figure it out, like one woman whose favorite pastime is spying on her lesbian neighbors. There’s a lot of seedy behavior like this, and we’re challenged to sit with the mess with these characters who vary from funny, to downright unacceptable (see: one person who creepily raids her bosses house).

Now, if you’re looking for more intense criminal activity, this isn’t your book. There are no thrilling murders or even intense heists, and so you won’t be met with challenging societal questions that sort of subject matter entertains. Instead, you kind of have to say yes to the mess and embrace all its ugliness to truly enjoy this one. So if you’re interested in sixteen often sapphic stories that playfully question what it means to be bad and queer at the same time, you might enjoy this read.

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Jasper “Jaz” Joyner is a Memphis-based author, poet, and editor. Their work has been featured in the Killens Review, The Offing, Oldster Mag, Huffington Post, the anthology book OUTSIDE THE XY, and many others. Their larger works include chapbook, A Flamboyance with Bottlecap Press, fantasy YA novel, Juniper Leaves, and zine anthology, Worth the Wage. Their latest, Pansy: A Black American Memoir, was a finalist for the Quill Prose Award and winner at the 3rd annual Richard Wright Literary Awards. jasperjoyner.com

Jasper's Bluesky

We have featured Jaz’s memoir on Queerthology Book Club last year! Check out the discussion post here:

We’d love to hear from you too!

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Jump into the comments or reply by email. There’s no need to have finished the book to join the conversation. Share your impressions so far, your final take, a favorite quote, an anecdote, or even related reads. Feeling inspired by an older pick? Revive the discussion anytime.

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One More Thing!

A quick reminder that we are going on a break for the summer to rest and recharge, and come back in the fall with some more amazing anthologies and collections. As usual, we encourage you to take some time to rest and recharge, catch up on past book club picks or any other books you’ve been meaning to get around to. Explore and discover new things, kick back and relax with the familiar.

We’ll still be giving recommendations for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge so keep an eye out for that and for a few cool things we have up our sleeves. See you later!

Welcome to the Nonfiction Reading Challenge! This is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

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June — Resistance

These nonfiction works highlight QTBIPOC perspectives on resistance, examining histories of activism, survival, and collective organizing against systems of oppression.

📚 Book Suggestions

• As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker*

• A Protest History of the United States by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall*

• Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion edited by Zane McNeill, Riley Clare Valentine, and Blu Buchanan*

• Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid edited by Wren Awry*

• Our Work is Everywhere: An Illustrated Oral History of Queer and Trans Resistance by Syan Rose*

• Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey*

• Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide featuring Nahil Mohana, Sondos Sabra, Ala’a Obaid & Batool Abu Akleen*

• We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson*

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🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Desi & Queer - Together, Forever

by Riya A.

As I sit here mulling over my feelings about this anthology, I look over at the tree in front of my window. I don’t know what it’s called, just that it has tiny berry-like fruits hanging from it. They keep swaying unbeknownst to the things around them. Changing colours and moods. Akin to my queer friends in the Global South.

The minute I dived into the preface of the book, I knew I was in for something bittersweet. Something cataclysmic. I think about the never-ending grief, the warmth my queer friends have shared, and the magnanimity with which they’ve lost. There’s so much love, insurmountable even. I was surprised and filled with pride when the editors Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal were sent a gazillion poems, essays, and love notes for the anthology. If I’m being honest, I never thought I’d see myself being reflected in this exploration and intersection of gender and identity. Always clinging to the seams. Never fully inside.

And then I read Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha’s poem My Father, Christmas 1991, As I Come Down the Stairs in Ripped Jeans and That Jane’s Addiction T-Shirt with All the Naked People.

“but there she comes, this angry brown daughter
who looks sort of like me, except she despises me
for how I drive the car too fast, shout her down for all her smart-ass remarks.
I don’t know if she knows I learned to drive
the week before her mother gave birth to her
there were always trishaws, buses and the London Underground where I grew up.”

It felt like someone sifted through my brain and picked up parts of me that I don’t like looking at. Rather, I’m expected to hide in order to maintain the hierarchy of the household. Thus, falling back into the structures I so desperately want to break free from. But even in the hierarchical chaos, I make space for tender love. Just like Karuna Chandrashekhar does in ‘Delhi: a love story’.

sitting cross-legged in a gurdwara / you say, ‘close your eyes and hear god speak’/ a pool reflects the night / stars meet our bare feet / fish dart across the sky / waiting / but nothing / on a rickshaw ride home / your knee touches mine / ‘god’s whisper’

I find religion and God and love as an agnostic person. I think about the queerness of it all. When you’re a desi queer who’s made home in a closet, everything outside of it feels scary. Then you meet someone who’s like you and understands what lies beneath hushed conversations, and you feel whole again. Like they just used a pestle and mortar to make a chutney of everything sweet, sour, and spicy.

My family pretends to not know, or rather, understand that I’m queer. They don’t know I’m also non-binary. The fluidity feels odd to them, as it did to me for so long. It’s funny because despite it all there’s love. So pray tell me why I felt like throwing plates on the wall after reading Riddhi Dastidar’s ‘Queer As In’.

Queer as in ‘with a girl?’ about a date, on the phone with your mum.
As in how can you hurt us like this?
As in marriage is the Difficult Question you’re skipping
to go look for those you can at least attempt to answer

Pray tell me why my hand on another woman is a crime.
The Transgender (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill 2026 was passed.

They took away my trans friends’ right to self-identify.

They stole my right to exist beyond the binary.

Our bodies are at their disposal. For them to inspect when they desire. Change the rules, break us down, isolate us. A part of the world expects us to step out of the closet with guns blazing.

The other wants to suffocate us. Remove us from histories. And yet we continue on. Write our bravest declaration of queerness. Don the saree that will remember us.

We’re tied together in grief and love and bravery. Maybe I’m not too brave. I don’t go to protests. I went once. No, I’m not a liar, just scared. Just learning how to mobilise better.

I keep finding faces of my queer and trans siblings to support financially.

Sometimes I lend my ear. I listen to their stories. Weep with them and laugh with them and rejoice in their victories. Other times, I tell the world about the ones who came before me, who built this world for me to be a lukewarm queer. A shy queer. A sometimes vocal queer.

This is not about me. This is not just about me.

Riya/Ri (she/they) is a queer, non-binary, creative executor and human copywriter from India. When they're not sacrificing their time to capitalism, they're drowning in horror or literary writing by BIPOC authors. You can find their "work shenanigans" on Instagram and Threads! Follow them on their book account so they can resuscitate it. Riya believes in a FREE Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and Kashmir.

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We’d love to hear from you too!

Share your thoughts in the comments and let us know what you think! We’ll see you in June for our read of Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos edited by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley

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✨ Ways to Connect

• Follow us over on Instagram

• Join the Queerthology Reading Challenge

• Chat with us on Discord

• Consider becoming a Supporter

Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos edited by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley

A follow-up to their runaway success Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women, editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley return with Be Gay, Do Crime, a celebration of queer chaos from an all-queer author lineup featuring Myriam Gurba, Emily Austin, Alissa Nutting, and Francesca Ekwuyasi

A trans woman makes increasingly frequent hoax calls to a business where she’s had a negative experience, watching the consequences with perverse joy. A group of aging queers turns to bank robbery to stop the sale of their bungalow complex to a development company. As the president prepares to give a speech, two women lurk among the journalists, ready to shoot him. And an aspiring author takes to stealing items from strangers’ homes in a kind of cosmic redistribution each time one of her relationships fail.

In sixteen brilliant, wild-eyed stories, Be Gay, Do Crime delivers a celebration and reckoning of why queer people turn to crime–unintentionally, as a means of survival, as protest, as rescue, or to right injustices big and small.

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Molly Llewellyn is a twenty-something queer, disabled book blogger from the UK. She previously co-edited Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women, published by Dzanc Books in 2023. She’s a big fan of “weird women” lit and anything that is the color green.

Kristel Buckley is an editor, publicist and former publisher from the Big Smoke. She is more than happy to talk your ear off about the unfaithful representation of women in history, and her passion is a more equitable, inclusive future for all stories from all voices. She lives in the UK.

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Content Warnings (via StoryGraph) Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Abortion, Death of parent

📖 Where Can I Get a Copy?

• Check your local library to see if they have a copy.

• Support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

• Feeling generous? Donate a copy to your fellow punks in need by using our registry.

✨ Cool Links to Check Out

• Petty Yet Liberating Incivilities in “Be Gay, Do Crime” - Southern Review of Books

• Inside an Anthology: Be Gay, Do Crime, ed. by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley - LGBTQ Reads

• Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos edited by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley Review - The Lesbrary

📚 Mays Prior

• 2023 - Sensory: Life on the Spectrum: An Autistic Comics Anthology edited by Bex Ollerton

• 2024 - Out of Our League: 16 Stories of Girls in Sports edited by Dahlia Adler and Jennifer Iacopelli

• 2025 - Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado

Welcome to the Nonfiction Reading Challenge! This is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

Subscribe now

May — About Writing

The world of writing is often shaped by gatekeeping, exclusion, and narrow definitions of craft. These books explore the many way writers of color examine craft, voice, genre, and the realities of writing within and beyond traditional literary spaces.

📚 Book Suggestions

• Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos*

• Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses*

• Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi*

• How DareWe! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse by Sherry Quan Lee*

• How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee*

• The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez*

• The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves edited by Sarah Moon*

• The Sentences that Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison edited by Caits Meissner*

• Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward

Leave a comment

🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Queer and Trans People of Color Are in the Future

by Amari Onyx

As I lay in my hospital bed, waiting to enter the operating room for top surgery, I held An Optimism by Cameron Awkward-Rich, close-reading his “Palinode” for Pauli Murray: epistolary attempts to reach them across time. That morning, I oscillated between reading An Optimism and Your Dazzling Death by Cass Donish—a lyric elegy and love offering to Donish’s life partner, Kelly Caldwell, a trans woman who ended her life after a long fight with mental illness and living in a world saturated in transphobia. As I read, I cried. I cried in gratitude that I was Black, trans, and alive, minutes away from receiving the gender-affirming surgery I had waiting over a decade for. I remember telling my partner that I felt like I was living in honor of the trans people that didn’t make it, that are no longer with us. As much as top surgery was for me, receiving that lifesaving, gender-affirming care felt bigger than me in that moment. In that moment, I felt that this step of my journey of self-actualization was for all of us: trans people fighting to make homes of our bodies, to stay alive.

A similar feeling washed over me when I read the essay, “All Power to the People” by Raquel Willis in Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color edited by Denne Michele Norris. In “All Power to the People,” Black trans writer, educator, and activist Raquel Willis wrote that the deaths of Black trans teens Leelah Alcorn and Blake Brockington by suicide motivated her to publicly share her experiences as a Black trans woman and become an activist. To share that living as a trans adult was possible. Neither Alcorn nor Brockington saw a future for themselves as Black trans adults. Reading that broke me. But I feel that—what they felt, the difficulty, the pain, the hopelessness—in my own way, so deeply, to this day. Being Black and trans in this world is hard y’all. As a Black trans adult less than two years into my medical transition, a few months post-op, every day is hard. Yet, our survival necessitates a belief that there are Black trans people in the future, including ourselves. Every day.

Willis’ life as an activist for the collective liberation of LGBTQIA+ people— and all oppressed peoples—as contextualized and expounded upon in her essay, is rooted in her commitment to Black trans futures. In her essay, she includes a speech she delivered at the Brooklyn Liberation March in which she spoke out against the genocides of our Palestinian, Sudanese, and Congolese family, against police and investment in death, and demanded that “leaders divest from death and invest in lives. Invest in Black lives, invest in Black trans lives, invest in poor lives, invest in homeless lives, houseless lives, Palestinian lives. and divest.” Reminding us that our Black trans liberation is inextricably tied to collective liberation.

There is so much to be afraid of— trans healthcare and existence is being attacked constantly. Trans people are denied resources, documentation, the right to our bodies and names. We are violenced systemically, physically, emotionally, daily. And, I was moved by A.L. Major’s essay, “Futures,” where they offer “For my own survival, I have to believe I have a future,” and later, “I am realizing the future is both a noun and a verb,” as they wrote of their nuanced relationship with the future as a Black trans person and survivor of childhood abuse (Major referenced Alisha B, Wormley’s billboard They Are Black People originally living in the East Liberty neighborhood in Pittsburgh, an as a Black Pittsburgher, I was ecstatic!). Reader, as Major and Wormley remind us, for our own survival, we must believe that we have futures. That we are in the future. As I write this reflection, I am in the throws of reckoning with my body, with dysphoria, with fear of being visible or “clocked,” of what the future will look like for us all. And yet, I choose to believe, to dream, to write us into the future.

This is no easy task, but the essays in Both/And offer us the wisdom and sustenance we will need as we continue onward. So, I will leave you all with the exhale held in the brilliance of Zeyn Joukhadar’s gift in their essay, “An Incomplete History of Trans Immortality,”

“Listen: I am trying to arrive at the miracle by the door of my trans flesh. I will not believe them when they write that I am dead… If immortality is a possibility that exists from moment to moment, perhaps practicable immorality is a hope in the future as a reachable pace.”

*

Both/And is a constellation of essays offering stories of our continued fight for QTBIPOC lives and liberation. I was struck, moved, and empowered by many other essays in the collection: Peppermint’s essay, “I’m Still Learning” about the lineage of Black women that came before her and empower her to be the performer and activist she is today; Kai Cheng Thom’s essay, “Straining Toward Humanity” where she writes towards the complexity of trans women and femmes while writing against the constraints and stereotypes within the cultural imagination; Jonah Wu’s essay, “Femininity Was the Knife I wielded” detailing their journey embracing the softness of their masculinity amidst their medical transition; Caro De Robertis’ essay, “Gender Euphoria is a Power Source” where they describe the euphoria of their own genderqueer body in conversation with elders in their oral history project, So Many Stars.

Amari Onyx is a Black trans writer and artist. Amari’s writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review and is forthcoming in Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora and The Shade Journal. He is the founder and organizer of the Pittsburgh local queer & trans reading series, meTamorphosis. Follow @metamorphosis.pgh to stay up to date for upcoming readings and community events. You can find his book reviews on instagram at @trustyourwings.books. Amari adores Black queer & trans poetics, queer night life, and film photography.

Also by Amari Onyx for Queerthology…

We’d love to hear from you too!

Share your thoughts in the comments or on our Discord, and let us know what you think! We’ll see you in April for our read of The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal.

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✨ Ways to Connect

• Follow us over on Instagram

• Join the Queerthology Reading Challenge

• Chat with us on Discord

• Consider becoming a Supporter

The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal

This first-of-its-kind anthology brings together the best of contemporary queer poetry from South Asia, both from the subcontinent and its many diasporas. The anthology features well-known voices like Hoshang Merchant, Ruth Vanita, Suniti Namjoshi, Kazim Ali, Rajiv Mohabir as well as a host of new poets.

The themes range from desire and loneliness, sexual intimacy and struggles, caste and language, activism both on the streets and in the homes, the role of family both given and chosen, and heartbreaks and heart joins.

Writing from Bangalore, Baroda, Benares, Boston, Chennai, Colombo, Dhaka, Delhi, Dublin, Karachi, Kathmandu, Lahore, London, New York City, and writing in languages including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Urdu, Manipuri, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and, of course, English, the result is an urgent, imaginative and beautiful testament to the diversity, politics, aesthetics and ethics of queer life in South Asia today.

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Aditi Angiras is an intersectional feminist poet, founder of Bring Back The Poets and queer activist who uses the power of words to communicate and inspire.

Akhil Katyal is a poet and translator based in Delhi. He is the author of Like Blood on the Bitten Tongue: Delhi Poems (Westland-Context) and How Many Countries Does the Indus Cross (TGIPC). With Aditi Angiras, he co-edited The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia (HarperCollins India). He was the University of Iowa International Writing Fellow in fall 2016 and the 2021 Vijay Nambisan Poetry Fellow.

📖 Where Can I Get a Copy?

• Check your local library to see if they have a copy.

• Support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

• Feeling generous? Donate a copy to your fellow punks in need by using our registry.

✨ Cool Links to Check Out

• Book Review: The World That Belongs To Us Edited By Aditi Angiras And Akhil Katyal - Feminist in India

• Opening Up Identity: How A Diverse Anthology Of Queer Poetry Came To Be - HuffPost

• Queer Poetry: Engenderings, Endangerings - Portside Review

• “The World that Belongs to Us” - Prohor (Youtube)

• Suitable Conversations | Akhil Katyal & Aditi Rao | What (In The World) is Queer Poetry? | S3 Ep.2 - A Suitable Agency (Youtube)

📚 Aprils Prior

• 2023 The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories: A Collection of Chinese Science Fiction and Fantasy in Translation from a Visionary Team of Female and Nonbinary Creators edited and collected by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang

• 2024 Black Punk Now edited by Chris L. Terry and James Spooner

• 2025 Pansy: A Black American Memoir by Jasper Joyner

Welcome to the Nonfiction Reading Challenge! This is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

Subscribe now

April — Tech Villains

Corporate tech bros are one of the biggest offenders of human rights violations and environmental ruination. From child labor, human exploitation, hyper-surveillance, algorithmic bias, censorship, etc., these books expose the many ways tech villains and their companies negatively impact the world.

📚 Book Suggestions

• Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams*

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou*

• Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang*

• Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism Is a Joke by Leigh Claire La Berge *

• Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy by Jonathan Taplin*

• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Nobel*

  • Kris’s Choice 🌟

• Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly*

• Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez*

• More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Boas in Tech by Meredith Broussard*

  • Janice’s Choice 🌟

• Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao*

• The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell*

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni*

Leave a comment

🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Hello Friends,

This year we are planning to once again to come together as a community of readers and participate in the Trans Rights Readathon! The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st. From March 17th–March 31, we call on the reader community to read and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, nonbinary, 2Spirit, and gender-nonconforming authors and characters.

How to Participate

Sign up for the Trans Rights Readathon! It’s important to make sure that you are counted in your efforts to support our trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and 2Spirit family. Now more than ever, when the attacks on our community are at the highest they have ever been, use the Readathon as a way to show up in a way that you may not have been able to do before. Have your voice (and coins!) counted so that those trying to shame, hide, or eradicate our community are drowned out.

Sign Up Form

Call to action: Read, support, review, and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and 2Spirit authors and characters. There are several book lists available, including a list with indie authors for you to discover and support.

Trans* Author + Books Masterlist

TRR Indie Book Database

Indie Authors Bookfunnel

Make content: Tag the new official @transrightsreadathon accounts on Instagram and Tiktok and @trreadathon on Twitter, and use #transrightsreadathon and #TRR26 when you post.

TRR Graphics

Donate: Participants are welcome to fundraise for trans aid organizations in their communities. If you’re able, fundraise or donate to a trans organization or a trans person in your community.

This year Queerthology Book Club will be supporting EspicyNipples!

EspicyNipples is a puertorican, transfeminist network that documents the lives of members of the TILQAPBG+ community, women, poor people, Black people, immigrants, people living with HIV, single parents and caretakers as well as indigenous people through popular media.

Learn More About EspicyNipples

Donate to Espicynipples

You are more than welcome to read with us and donate to EspicyNipples. You can also find charities and organizations in your area to support. If you’re not able to donate, then take this opportunity to volunteer with an organization that serves the trans community, call/email your elected officials to advocate for trans rights, and share other people’s fundraisers.

We have put together a few recommendations based on previous book club picks, which you can find listed in the Library, but also some that are inspired by the Nonfiction Reading Challenge and beyond! Feel free to leave us some recommendations in the comments.

From the Queerthology Library

• Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection edited by Madeline Dyer

• Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color edited by Denne Michele Norris

• HEARTWOOD: Non-binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy edited by Joamette Gil

• Pansy: A Black American Memoir by Jaz Joyner

• Succulent: Trans-Inclusive Sapphic Comics Anthology edited by Nikki Smith, Ollie Hicks, and Tab Kimpton

• We Mostly Come Out At Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures edited by Rob Costello

• When I was Me: Moments of Gender Euphoria edited by Eve Greenwood and Alex Assan

More Recs!

• 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies edited by Tuck Woodstock and Niko Stratis

• Athlete Is Agender: True Stories of LGBTQ+ People in Sports edited by by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby

• Beyond the Gender Binary (Pocket Change Collective) by Alok Vaid-Menon

• Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead

• Non-Binary Lives: An Anthology of Intersecting Identities edited by Jos Twist, Ben Vincent, Meg John-Barker, and Kat Gupta

• So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer and Two-Spirit People of Color edited by Caro de Robertis

• Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words edited by Maxfield Sparrow

• The Real Lives of Transgender and Nonbinary Humans: A Publish Your Purpose Anthology edited by Brandi Lai

• Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender and Non-Binary Voices edited by Freiya Benson

What We’re Reading (Our Hopefuls)

Kris

• A Lady for All Seasons by TJ Alexander - I have been wanting to read a historical romance ever since the new season of Bridgerton aired.

• The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw - I’ve had this novella for a while now and it’s about time I just got around to reading it.

• Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color edited by Denne Michele Norris - Our book club pick is already about Trans and Gender-Nonconforming folks! Excellent. Two birds, one seed.

• The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters - Another one that works out as a pick due to it being a suggestion for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge!

Janice

• Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color edited by Denne Michele Norris - Two birds, one seed as bestie says. This is our Queerthology book club pick.

• The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters - I’ve been wanting to read more books related to sports. I’m not a sporty person, so I’m copying off of Kris with this one.

• You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom by Vincent Tirado - I’ve had this book pending since the beginning of the month. It’s the best time to start.

Love is in the Food

Homemade Chico’s Tacos - Remembering the Chico’s Five (Single Story Reflection)

by Caitlin Monday

I hear the laughter over the table. I smell the sauce. As soon as I dig in, the signature dish of Chico’s Tacos is dripping down my fingers. I’m a kid again.

In our community food is synonymous with memory. Whether at Chico’s Tacos or your abuelita’s kitchen table.

My memories of food are deeply tied to my abuelita, “Mami.” We never spoke the same language but we communicated through food. Food was love.

This story reminded me that food IS love. Food IS community.

It’s being a kid again and laughing with your friends on a Friday night. Or it’s watching your Mami pour love into her rice and beans so that you are well taken care of.

It’s an understanding that though we may not say the right things all the time, we can still say “I love you.”

Mami passed before the Chico’s Five or before I got the chance to come out but I like to think that she would have been holding my hand at that kitchen table, feeding me, telling me in her own way that her love remained, no matter what. I would help her stir and she would hold my hand. I would swing my feet at her little kitchen table and she would make me be the taste tester.

Her kitchen was community. Just like any kitchen should have been for the Chico’s Five.

We can pass memories and love through our food, without ever uttering a word. We need to hold on to this vital piece of our community more than ever.

Just like Mami would have, I hold a space at my kitchen table for the Chico’s Five and all the members of our queer community.

I’m from El Paso, Texas and I like to say I’ve been putting the pan in pan dulce since 1994. I’m Lipan Apache Mexican. Reading and writing have always been my guiding light. I love to bake and cook. I make a fantastic tres leches cupcake! I can be found online primarily on my Instagram @mondaysshelf.

Caitlin's Instagram

We’d love to hear from you too!

Share your thoughts in the comments or on our Discord— join the discussion and let us know what you think! We’ll see you in March for our read of Both/And!

Subscribe now

✨ Ways to Connect

• Follow us over on Instagram

• Join the Queerthology Reading Challenge

• Chat with us on Discord

• Consider becoming a Supporter

Both/And Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color edited by Denne Michele Norris

From Denne Michele Norris and Electric Literature, a vital anthology of essays by trans and gender-nonconforming writers of color, sharing stories of joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery.

Featuring seventeen essays by trans people of color—spanning writers, scientists, actors, activists, and drag queens—Both/And explores what it means to live as a trans or gender nonconforming person of color today.

Acclaimed authors Akwaeke Emezi, Tanaïs, and Meredith Talusan share their stories alongside activist and organizer Raquel Willis and RuPaul’s Drag Race star Peppermint, as well as a host of rising literary talent. Each story is told with honesty, authenticity, and beauty. A nonbinary molecular biologist has nightmares about their estranged father transitioning. A writer revisits a casual hook-up when she discovered her womanhood. And a woman vacations with her wife in Hawaii, where she gets in touch with the fire goddess within. These stories depict real trans lives from trans points of view, at a time when these perspectives are most urgent and valuable.

Inspired by Electric Literature’s groundbreaking series and edited by the first Black, openly trans editor-in-chief of a major literary publication, Both/And uplifts and amplifies stories of queer joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery.

Denne Michele Norris is the editor in chief of Electric Literature, where she became the first Black, openly transgender woman to helm a major literary publication. A 2021 Out100 Honoree, her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for Black Fiction, and has appeared in McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and Zora. She is the former fiction editor of both Apogee Journal and The Rumpus, a co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot, and a mentor to emerging writers of color with the Periplus Collective. She lives in New York City.

Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher with the mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive.

✨

Content Warnings (via StoryGraph) Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Ableism, Domestic abuse, Drug use

Gracias por existir

I love that this book exists. Now more than ever, the world needs genderqueer voices from people of color as the complex nature of marginalization and intersectionality. There is something incredibly beautiful and powerful to share these experiences of queer realizations, gender euphoria, and trans-joy. I confess that I’m cheating and have already went ahead and started this anthology, and I’m enjoying the contributor’s thoughts on being their authentic self in a world determined to force a gender binary and literally attack those that step outside them. I know I always say I hope you join us reading this month’s pick, but I urge you to pick this one up. (Also the cover is freaking gorgeous and irresistible)

-Janice

This is the kind of book that widens your field of vision. Whether you identify as queer, trans, LGBTQIAP+, or are simply trying to better understand the people you care about, these essays invite you into lived realities that complicate and enrich how we think about identity, community, and survival. At a time when political rhetoric (especially during the gender-focused battles amplified under the current administration) has fueled open hostility toward trans lives, listening to and valuing these voices becomes an act of resistance. This is exactly the kind of book Queerthology Book Club was conceived for, and I do hope you join us in reading and discussing this essential work.

-Kris

📖 Where Can I Get a Copy?

• Check your local library to see if they have a copy.

• Support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

• Feeling generous? Donate a copy to your fellow punks in need by using our registry.

✨ Cool Links to Check Out

• Introducing Both/And: Trans and GNC Writers Tell Their Own Stories (Electric Lit)

• Exclusive Cover Reveal: “Both/And” by Denne Michele Norris (Electric Lit)

• Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color (Publishers Weekly)

• Ep. 387 Full-Time Literary with Denne Michele Norris (The Stacks Podcast)

• Lit Lounge: The People’s Art (October 2025) - Denne Michele Norris (Youtube)

📚 Marches Prior

2023 Life on Mars* by Tracy K. Smith

2024 Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection* edited by Madeline Dyer

2025 You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World* edited by Ada Limón

Welcome to the Nonfiction Reading Challenge! This is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

Subscribe now

March — Queer Sports

The theme for this month is “Queer Sports” and it explores athletics through the lens of identity, visibility, and belonging. With this prompt we invite you to read about queer athletes, communities, and the ways sports culture can both challenge and reinforce societal norms.

📚 Book Suggestions

• Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports by Ellie Roscher and Dr. Anna Baeth*

• The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Micahel Waters*

• The Race to Be Myself: A Memoir by Caster Semenya*

• Athlete Is Agender: True Stories of LGBTQ+ People in Sports edited by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby*

• Coming Home by Britney Griner*

• Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes by Harrison Browns and Rachel Browne*

Leave a comment

🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Supporting Queerthology helps us pay writers and artists, buy and share books, and keep our newsletter and virtual book club accessible to everyone. Your support directly sustains a queer space where we can gather, read, and celebrate stories by and for our community.

If you’re interested in being a Queerthology Book Club Supporter, you can do that through our ko-fi. Leave me a one-time donation or you can become a monthly member in order to support the book club PLUS you get to have a couple of sweet perks. You can also just become a paid subscriber right here on Substack by hitting that one button that says Upgrade.

Become a Supporter Today!

ICYMI 👀 Check out the book club pick for February: Queers at the Table as well as our book suggestions for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge prompt: Food.

Recent (Buddy) Reads

We are buddy reading the Between Earth and Sky Trilogy by Rebecca Roanhorse! See our repurposed reviews below. 😅 Work smarter not harder, dear friends.

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

Fevered Star is such a strong second book. You know how sometimes book two just feels like set-up? Not here. This is where all the political theater really steps into the spotlight and the chess board becomes clear.

The peace is shattered, the sun is black in the sky, and everyone is maneuvering. Alliances shift, old grudges resurface, old magics creep back in. What felt like background plotting in Black Sun is front and center now. You can see the pieces moving (Serapio, Naranpa, Xiala, Okoa) each of them pulled by loyalty, grief, ambition, revenge.

Honestly, part of why this hit so well for me is that I buddy read it. We paced it out, had check-ins, sent each other memes and messages, and it made the political maneuvering even more fun to untangle together. Taking my lunch breaks to read, knowing we had conversations coming up, gave me the accountability I needed to get back into a regular reading rhythm. It’s been a long time since I’ve engaged with a book like this consistently, and it felt so good.

-Kris

I love Rebecca Roanhorse. Going through this series as a buddy read has been a real treat. Fevered Star was so enjoyable because it literally picks up where Black Sun left off. In Black Sun, the characters are outsiders within their respective groups. In the wake of the final scene, the characters need to contend with the blowback of their actions.

In Fevered Star, alliances are being made, secrets are revealed, and characters are taking the initiative to walk their own path. The political intrigue and betrayal kept me enthralled and guessing. The title aptly refers to how bright with promise the characters are before snuffing out, and this ties to will of the gods using mortals as pawns. What happens when these stars discover their autonomy? When the desires of the mortal contradict that of the god host? I couldn’t put this book down.

-Janice

Benito Bowl

The week prior to this year’s Superbowl, I signed up to bartend at the Superbowl Experience in SF alongside my husband with the catering company he occasionally works with. Both of us would stop working our day jobs, quickly change and then commute to the city to serve hundreds of people their overpriced beer, wine, soda and water alongside excellent customer service!

It was actually a super fun time. I met a ton of cool people, spoke to them both in English and Spanish— this would lead to people asking me where I was from or where my Spanish was from, which then would lead into the mandatory Puerto Rico-Bad Bunny-Superbowl Halftime Show part of the interaction. No complaints there, though after a few of these encounters I started feeling a un poquito tired.

The gig was done by Saturday (or technically 2AM on Sunday) and after a week of pulling doubles all that was left was to recover and visit a friend to watch the show. I admit that energy was low within me that Sunday, but nothing could really prepare me for the lack of energy in a room full of white people watching the Superbowl Halftime Show.

Read more

Off to a Great Start

Out the gate, our reading started with a really strong collection! The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories was an outstanding curated collection of speculative fiction. There were many stories we loved, but we each had three stories that stayed with us.

Janice’s Top Stories

“Calendar Girls” by Justina Ireland is giving The Handmaid’s Tale vibes where fundamentalists strip women of bodily autonomy. The story follows Alyssa, an ally to women who are in danger of unwanted pregnancies and/or childbirth. When Alyssa is picked up by the cops, she unknowingly is taken to see someone higher up instead for a favor. What I enjoyed about this story is how real this society feels like, it’s almost as though we were on the cusp of this very regime. I didn’t foresee the twist in Alyssa’s plans (I won’t spoil it), and felt like Ireland gives the reader a satisfying resolution which is not easy to do in speculative fiction that critiques political issues. Ireland made me live through all of my feminist rage in this story, and I find myself continuing to think about it.

“All That Touches the Air” by An Owomoyela centers on a colony near the Ocean of Starve on another planet. This planet already has intelligent life, a tiny parasitic species called the Vosth, and the humans maintain a neutral relationship with it. I am always going to be fascinated by how alien species or extraterrestrial entities are described in media. Stories that ponder how another sentient race would think, act, behave place are really mirrors to examine the core of our own beliefs. How can we deconstruct the mythos of being the center of the universe? Despite centuries of Copernicus debunking this self-imposed misconception, our spirit still lacks this decentralization. The Vosth raise a particular set of questions I found intriguing: What does it mean to be the dominant species? What does dominance look like with other sentient species? What if there is a fundamental difference related to biology, autonomy, and consent? There were many variables to consider the Vosth’s position. A story having me stretch my mind that much made me love it.

“The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by NK Jemisin is a response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and I am HERE FOR IT. Le Guin’s story is really a moral dilemma where a townsperson of Omelas is forced to choose between a utopia by torturing a child versus leaving, and walking away forever. Jemisin’s response to this is to offer a third option, what if no one is sacrificed? What if we fight? When I read Le Guin’s story with my students, it is an answer some gravitate towards naturally, and yet, this is not the obvious answer. Le Guin’s proposition is a binary; like so many social structures are. It scapegoats the possibility of responsibility. If one leaves Omelas, if one is not participating, the problem ceases to be theirs, and they are morally absolved. Jemisin’s third premise is a calling; there is no utopia without liberation, and that commitment must be unwavering and relentless. Because of the badass way Jemisin addresses social justice, empathy and intersectionality, this is my number one story of The Black Fantastic.

Kris’s Top Stories

“Sanford and Sun” - Maybe it’s just been so long since I’ve sat down and watched a classic television sitcom, but this was such a cool way to tell this particular story. I didn’t watch as much Sanford and Sons (1972) but the few episodes I did catch always cracked me up. And the quality of writing was so much so that I was able to vividly hear what was happening on the page as though it was from the television in our living room. My hope is that those unfamiliar with the show are still able to imagine something as comparably funny. I loved this superfly, cosmic bottle episode of a story. I felt it matched the energy of the sitcom as well as the energy of this anthology— at least the lighter stories.

“Tender”- I love Sofia Samatar’s writing so as soon as I saw this one come up I knew I would be in for a treat and I was not disappointed. Off the bat, I loved the play on words with tender :: being tender, feeling tender vs tending the earth. A clever distraction for the slow and devastating unraveling story. We come to realize why the woman has decided to leave her life and isolate herself, absorbing dangerous levels of radiation. This story left me thoughtful and contemplative. It’s my favorite thing to be able to revisit one of my favorite authors with such an amazing style.

“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawaiʻi” - Another quiet kind of story that I honestly wouldn’t have paid much mind to if it wasn’t for how 1. beautifully it’s written and 2. how much it hit home as I reflected on the current times living in America. A tropical island, an entire world overrun with vampires who keep humans around to feed off of. Winners and losers of a war. The humans are the food, who aid and abet the vampires for more favor, or because they truly don't have a choice. I felt this was a very layered way to tell the story of the compromises we are forced to make in order to survive. What happens when we don’t get what we want? What happens if we do?

We’d love to hear from you too!

Share your thoughts in the comments or on our Discord— join the discussion and let us know what you think! We’ll see you in February for our read of Queers at the Table!

Subscribe now

Memory Mixtape

Kris: I started a Substack called Memory Mixtape. It’s meant to be a space for longer thoughts on what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and everything in between. Think of it like making a playlist of memories, but with words. First post is about the year I disappeared from Bookstagram and what it took to get back. I know there’s a lot happening in the world, but sometimes the personal stuff needs air too 𓆏

Memory Mixtape

A queer mixtape of thoughts and memories

By Kris

✨ Ways to Connect

• Follow us over on Instagram

• Join the Queerthology Reading Challenge

• Chat with us on Discord

• Consider becoming a Supporter

An anthology of essays, comics, and recipes that reveals the dynamic and transformative relationship between queerness and food

Food has long played an important role in queer culture. Lesbian- and queer women-run feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses have been safe spaces for queer and trans folk where gender norms can be challenged and where female authority is legitimized. During the AIDS epidemic, gay men and their allies centered food as an expression of collective care for those who needed it most. And queer and trans folk have asserted themselves in a restaurant culture largely controlled by white cisgender men.

Queers at the Table celebrates the various intersections between queers and food. In its essays, comics, and recipes, the book shows how queer food fosters connections, defies norms, honours legacies, and creates community. Taylor Hartson and Tristian Lee write about a queer farming community in which queerness is part of a broad network of living things to be enjoyed and shared; Danielle Kydd writes about food security issues as faced by LGBTQ2S+ folk; and Blue Delliquanti’s comic on urban foraging in Minneapolis demonstrates the role of a queer friend group in a local ecosystem.

In full colour throughout, Queers at the Table is a diverse and enriching anthology that reveals the myriad nurturing ways that queerness informs food production and restaurant culture and how food empowers, transforms, and unites queer and trans folk.

🍜

Megan J. Elias (they/them) is director of the Food Studies Program at Boston University and an associate professor. They are the co-editor (with Alex D. Ketchum of Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes) and the author of five books about food history, including Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press). Elias teaches courses in food history and food and gender and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Alex D. Ketchum (she/her) is an assistant professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the co-editor (with Megan J. Elias) of Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes) and the author of several books, including Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Concordia University Press). She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Let ‘Em Cook

In a class I teach, I have students work on a biweekly journal of sorts, and one prompt in particular is linked to the power of food. I have my students think critically of its importance in our daily lives, in our culture, and in our world at large. While this exercise is meant to look at food holistically, my goal is always to ponder the impact food has in our day-to-day lives and how might that differ between different social structures and political paradigms. I think this is a deeply interesting topic that deserves contemplation and the space for discussion.

-Janice

🍜

“Not to sound dramatic,” my friend said as they split the fried egg and mixed up the contents of our stone bowl bibimbap. They laughed and shook their head. “But food is probably the one thing keeping me around.” It was dramatic, but I understood exactly what they meant. Food is also one of the things that brings me the most pleasure in life. Its scarcity at points in my life has brought me great anguish, but also the chance to connect with others in the most interesting and important ways—the man giving away mangoes after the hurricane so we could have fresh fruit, the neighbor bringing a huge sack of pigeon peas to peel for us to keep, the warm, welcoming smiles as my grandfather and I drove up to deliver meals from the local church. Hunger threatened to separate us, but also drove us closer in order to survive. It’s something I’ll never forget.

I told my friend, “Same, same,” in response. We sat together and shared our huge meal family-style. Between bites, we talked about the past year—our wins, our works in progress, the healing we’re trying to do, the fun we’re trying to have. We were literally queers at the table, devouring this food and each other’s presence. I thought about how much this meant to me and felt so grateful when, hours later, with our plates scraped clean, we all agreed, “Let’s do this again!”

Sitting at that table, sharing food and stories, I kept thinking about how much meaning lives in moments like these. I’m so excited for us to read Queers at the Table. This book feels like a continuation of that experience, and an exploration of what more there is to discover!

-Kris

🍜

📖 Where Can I Get a Copy?

• Check your local library to see if they have a copy.

• Support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

• Feeling generous? Donate a copy to your fellow punks in need by using our registry.

🍜 Cool Links to Check Out

• Highlights from the Kitchen Table Conversation- Queers at the Table: Eat, Talk, Write, Draw. - Oxford Food Symposium

• Queer All Year Webinar: Queers at the Table (Webinar on February 10, 2026 via Zoom) - James Beard Foundation

• Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes) - Sinister Wisdom, Youtube

• Queers at the Table: On LGBTQ Food, Recipes, and Comics

  A conversation with Alex Ketchum and Megan Elias on their new illustrated anthology - Substack

Sighs & Whispers

Queers at the Table: On LGBTQ Food, Recipes, and Comics

When historians and academics Megan J. Elias and Alex D. Ketchum sought to discover what “queer food” is, they organized a conference, bringing together a multiplicity of voices all considering the same question. What became clear from the first Queer Food Conference in 2024…

Read more

8 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Laura McLaws Helms

📚 Februaries Prior

• 2023 - It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese

• 2024 - Plantains and Our Becoming: Poems by Melania Luisa Marte

• 2025 - Succulent: Trans Inclusive Sapphic Erotic Comics

Welcome to the Nonfiction Reading Challenge! This is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

Subscribe now

February — Food

Food is a source of power. It can be used to nourish, unite, control, heal, and destroy. From passed down recipes of abuela’s cooking, learning about other culinary experiences, or leaning into sustainable agriculture this category is meant to explore all things related to food from authors of different backgrounds and identities.

📚 Book Suggestions

• Cook Like Your Ancestors: An Illustrated Guide to Intuitive Cooking With Recipes From Around the World by Mariah-Rose Marie*

• Food Related Stories by Gaby Melian*

• Good Things (Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook) by Samin Nosrat*

• Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes) edited by Alex D Ketchum and Megan J Elias*

  • Double Feature w Queerthology Book Club in February!

• Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks by Crystal Wilkinson*

• The Modern Navajo Kitchen: Homestyle Recipes that Celebrate the Flavors and Traditions of the Diné by Alana Yazzie*

Leave a comment

🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Supporting Queerthology helps us pay writers and artists, buy and share books, and keep our newsletter and virtual book club accessible to everyone. Your support directly sustains a queer space where we can gather, read, and celebrate stories by and for our community.

If you're interested in being a Queerthology Book Club Supporter, you can do that through our ko-fi. Leave me a one-time donation or you can become a monthly member in order to support the book club PLUS you get to have a couple of sweet perks. You can also just become a paid subscriber right here on Substack by hitting that one button that says Upgrade.

Become a Supporter Today!

ICYMI 👀 Check out the book club pick for January: The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories Edited by andré m. carrington as well as our book suggestions for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge January prompt: Fashion/Clothing.

Recent Reads

Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

I have been an avid Kitasei reader since her debut The Deep Sky, and what I love about her writing is that she lets her story speak for itself. In other words, her themes are shown through the elements of her storytelling rather than directly telling the reader the point. Unlike her previous two books which are mostly set in space, Saltcrop explores a world that is being reclaimed by the ocean. The story follows three sisters, as two of them set off to find the eldest who is missing. Along the way, they begin to uncover the truth about the corporation Renewal which up until that point has been a source of helping their ever-dying agriculture.

Eco-dystopias are books I tend to gravitate to because, as unbelievable as it may sound, they quell my anxieties for the future. I think Kitasei’s works are relatable because they don’t rely on a singular apocalyptical event to force humanity into survival mode like The Day After Tomorrow; instead, future generations inherit the consequences of ignoring scientists for corporate greed. It’s a very real scenario where all the signs were both given and ignored; our species destined for a slow procession of self-immolation. Is this what T.S. Eliot meant when he said the world would end “not with a bang/but with a whimper”? In the face of overwhelming calamity, we will just shrug and continue until we can’t? Kitasei’s ending is hopeful; a string of events happening to the right people who are not so inclined to accept their fate, the human spirit always a fighter.

-Janice

“Our Lady of the Quarry” and “The Cart” from The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

A few days ago, I stumbled across the trailer for an upcoming movie titled La virgen de la tosquera, and it tickled something in my brain. I wondered out loud, Have I read this before? When I saw who was tagged as a collaborator—Mariana Enriquez herself—I remembered it was adapted from her short story collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Los peligros de fumar en la cama in Spanish).

Curious, I decided to find my copy to reread, recall, and let myself speculate about how they would blend these seemingly unrelated stories together. Upon rereading I quickly remembered what an unhinged and violent short story collection this was/is.

“La virgen de la tosquera” (“Our Lady of the Quarry”) follows a group of teenage girls who become obsessively jealous of an older girl, Silvia, whom they see as an undeserving, ugly-ass braggart and liar. When Silvia starts dating their collective crush, Diego, things spiral. One of the girls mixes period blood into Diego’s coffee in a failed attempt to lure him to her—or their collective—side. Later, during a trip to the quarry, Silvia and Diego play a cruel prank, sending the girls on a long walk to what’s supposed to be an altar to the Virgin. Instead, one of the girls (period coffee girl, to be precise) enters a cave and finds not a holy effigy, but a grotesque nude figure draped in white. She asks it for something, and moments later Silvia and Diego are mauled to death by wild dogs as the girls quietly leave the area.

“El carrito” (“The Cart”) reads almost like a fable. An elderly alcoholic man, Juancho, is brutally attacked by a fed-up neighbor named Horacio. The violence only stops when the narrator’s mother (a respected physical therapist that people confuse as a doctor) steps in and tells Horacio to calm the fuck down and leave the man alone. Soon after, a small rolling cart appears outside the home of someone who has died. People suspect Juancho placed it there, but no one really knows. It smells awful, yet no one touches it.

Over the next few days, the town is plagued by escalating misfortune: people lose their jobs, food becomes scarce, and violence spreads. The narrator’s family seems mysteriously untouched, and the neighbors begin to notice their distinct lack of bad luck. Juancho eventually reappears, proving he isn’t behind whatever is happening. The story ends with the chilling implication that the town has turned on itself, possibly eating one another.

I’m sitting at this cafe like Holy shit, dude.

Both of these stories are mean in the way only Mariana Enriquez can manage; not cruel for shock value alone, but in their insistence on showing how easily people turn on each other. Jealousy, resentment, superstition, and hunger quickly turn into violence and no one walks away clean, even the innocent bystanders. Revisiting these stories reminded me why Enriquez’s work doesn’t just haunt you, it forces you to sit with the uglier truths of human behavior long after the page—or the screen—goes dark. All of this makes me equal parts excited and terrified to see how the film brings Enriquez’s brutal, unsettling world to life.

-Kris

Behind the Scenes

One Year Later

It has now been a year of me co-hosting this microscopic corner of the internet that is Queerthology Book Club, and although we are tiny, for me, it has been a huge part of my life. Initially it took me a while to find my footing here, and if I’m being completely honest I don’t think I’m quite there just yet. Allow me to elaborate.

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The Lost Intro

Reid A. Taylor

You’ve watched Jurassic Park and Man vs. Wild, you know we are in a climate crisis, but you haven’t experienced it like this. What follows are stories designed to capture the mind and ensnare your senses, and make you wonder; do you have what it takes? Follow us into the dark and join us in the never ending night of the arctic as we hear stories of survival and peril and ask yourself; would you make it out of the dark?

Reider’s Digest

Without an intro into this anthology, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this collection, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was pulled into the setting. Almost all of the stories successfully put me THERE, battling the elements, shivering in the cold, and fighting for survival with the narrator. This collection seemed very intent on grappling with the question “will mankind survive the world we have damaged so much?” At its face this question has been asked and answered in various ways over centuries, but never quite in the way. The blending of indigenous stories and magical realism along with the very real science of the danger we all face from nature felt like a fresh take on an old idea. I also found refreshing the idea that humans can, and probably will, be beaten by the dangers we have created in our natural world. Far too often we follow a story about human interference with our natural world and how we mucked it up, but our “good ol’ boy” American hero manages to come out on the other side and once again best nature. Maybe it’s one of the reasons we have millions of Americans taking the climate crisis seriously, but not too seriously - I mean, afterall, don’t we just need Chris Pratt to come save us from our wreckage? If you’re fed up with that old byline and ready for a fresh take where man can’t always ride off into the sunset, then TAAQTUMI is for you.

Okay it’s all great, but what’s the real draw? You’re in luck! Here’s a few of my favorites: start here and wait to be swept away:

The Best of the Best: “The Wildest Game”

I am a guy who has been a big reader my entire life. I love being pulled into someone else’s world and I love creating my own images of what that looks like. With that being said, I have never physically balked at a story the way I have with this one. My teeth were clenched and my eyes half closed through this entire read. As a crime tv kid, the closest I can relate this entry to is an episode of Criminal Minds. If you are looking for something to disgust and delight, this is your bread and butter. The narrative structure is a bit different than the rest of the collection, but I truly have never felt so viscerally a story I was reading and I suspect I won’t for quite some time.

Honorable Mention: “The Door”

Prior to reading “The Wildest Game”, this was my top story of the anthology. I read this collection in order and this story held up as the top almost all the way to the end. If you are a fan of classic early 2000’s scary movie/horror genre then this read is for you. The story-building, suspense and even the very presence of the devil bring me right back to The Conjuring, The Devil Made Me Do It, and Paranormal Activity. As a child who grew up conservative Christian, there’s just something about that fear of the devil constantly knocking at your door waiting for you to let him in that just never gets old. I guess what they say is true, people are drawn to horror to explore their real-world anxieties in a safe way.

What about you? What were some of your favorites? Any stories you didn’t finish? What were your favorites? Why or why not? Any shows, movies, other books these stories reminded you of? Let me know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Reid A. Taylor (he/they) can be found repairing drywall with one hand and reading a book in another-- all while managing the amazing handy humans! He enjoys stories of all genres, particularly thrillers and lowkey has the best cozy snack recommendations.

Thank you so much, Reid for coming in clutch with this mini review for us! If you’re in the Bay Area and find yourself in need of help with home repairs or moving, don’t hesitate to reach out to him and his team of handy humans to get the job done. <3

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Taaqtumi Volume 2 is out now!

This new collection of horror short fiction weaves together contemporary Arctic settings with ancient monsters and mysterious beings that have been said to stalk the tundra for centuries. Featuring authors from across the Canadian Arctic, this new volume of Taaqtumi—an Inuktitut word that means “In the Dark”—reveals just how horrifying the dark can be.

Featuring new fiction from award-winning authors Aviaq Johnston, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley and Jamesie Fournier, as well as new voices in the genre, this collection is perfect for any horror lover.

Taaqtumi Volume 2

We’d love to hear from you too!

Share your thoughts in the comments or on our Discord, and let us know what you think! We’ll see you in January for our read of The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories Edited by andré m. carrington!

Last year, Janice was looking for a way to incorporate more nonfiction into her reading life. A self-imposed challenge felt like the best way to do it, and she asked me to join her to keep her accountable and to give me an excuse to read books with her. Originally, we created this challenge and posted it to Instagram.

Every month we thought of what interested us and made a list of suggestions for ourselves, but also for anyone else who might be interested or needed inspiration to read a genre that is oftentimes thought of as dry, dense, and boring. We had a great year connecting with friends and strangers on the Internet over the books we discovered and the things we learned as we read through our picks. This year we decided to combine forces here on Substack and share it with our lovely readers.

How Does It Work?

The Nonfiction Reading Challenge is a year-round reading journey designed to help you explore the full spectrum of nonfiction (memoir, history, science writing, essays, cultural criticism) through the voices of diverse creators. Each month, you’ll receive a new prompt and/or or recommendation in your inbox to guide and inspire your reading. There are no deadlines, no pressure. Pick the books that speak to you, move at your own pace, and follow your curiosity wherever it leads.

This year, we will be exploring the following categories in the Nonfiction Reading Challenge:

1. January — Clothing/Fashion

2. February — Food

3. March — Queer Sports

4. April — Tech Villains

5. May — About Writing

6. June — About Resistance

7. July — Disability

8. August — Essay Collection

9. September — Media Critique

10. October — Horror or Horror-Adjacent

11. November — Indigenous

12. December — Nature, Revisited

Engage with any of the prompts in our monthly newsletters, share what you’ve read, what you plan to read, and/or offer recommendations! Track your progress on Storygraph and chat with us on Discord.

Subscribe now

January— Clothing/Fashion

This category may explore anything from fashion history, the cultural significance of certain attire, exploitative fast-fashion industries, and even sustainable textiles.

📚 Book Suggestions

• Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment by Jillian Hernandez*

• Black in Fashion: 100 Years of Style, Influence & Culture by Tara Donaldson and Tonya Blazio-Licorish*

• Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism by Aja Barber*

• Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style by Shantrelle P. Lewis*

• The Encyclopedia of Ugly Fashion: A Hilarious Introspective of History’s Best Worst Fashion Trends by Karolina Żebrowska*

• The Fabric of Civilization: how Textiles Made the World by Virgina Postrel*

• Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fasion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas*

• The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures by Christian Allaire*

• Regenerative Fashion by Safia Minney*

• Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion by Eleanor Medhurst*

• Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser*

• A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk by Jonathan D. Katz

Leave a comment

🏛️ Remember to check your local library to see if they have a copy of a book that interests you!

📖 You can also support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

Links marked with * are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the newsletter and keep it going. Thanks for your support!

Subscribe now

✨ Ways to Connect

• Follow us over on Instagram

• Join the Queerthology Reading Challenge

• Chat with us on Discord

• Consider becoming a Supporter

✍️ Writer’s Wanted!

Queerthology is looking for writers for our newsletter in 2026: Fill out our interest form!

The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories Edited by andré m. carrington

A cutting-edge collection of the best short stories in contemporary Afrofuturist fiction—from Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker award-winning Black authors

Black speculative fiction has never been better than it is here and now. On the shoulders of Afrofuturist masters like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany and pioneering visionaries before them, a new, abundant, and brilliant generation of contemporary Black authors, some of them just beginning their careers, is conjuring up a very real renaissance.

Edited by SF-expert andré carrington, and including Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winners alongside emerging and experimental voices, The Black Fantastic showcases the artistry of these breakout literary stars and celebrates the diversity of their talents.

Including Afrofuturist science fiction, weird and fantastic tales, horror and the paranormal, apocalyptic lyricism, time travel, superheroes, and more, here are twenty mindblowing, horror-strewn, weird, woke, nerdy, terrifying, liberating, fantastic, utopian, surreal, genre-defying and empowering short stories, all of them worth reading and rereading now and far into futurity.

Reclaiming histories of racism and oppression and seizing the day, these writers are forging kaleidoscopic new senses of Black identity, community, and imaginative freedom.

✨

andré carrington, editor, is the author of Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (2016). He is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he directs the Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science program.

Traditions That Get us By

Happy Holidays from your friends at Queerthology! As 2026 approaches with all of its terrifying questions, we lean back on the traditions that we’ve made for ourselves. In this case, starting the year off with some speculative fiction.

This time around, we’re checking out an anthology that showcases the best of the best in Afrofuturism and keeps asking us that other essential question: what if? What if the future isn’t fixed? What if it’s shaped by the stories we tell, the worlds we imagine, and the conversations we have together? And what might change if we give ourselves permission to imagine something better (or worse?)

We hope you’ll read along with us this January and stick with us through the rest of 2026! We’ll keep reading stories like these and we’ll ask those big questions.

Maybe we’ll find those answers together.

-Kris

✨

I was all over Afrofuturism when I was working on my MA. Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction, one of the pioneer authors who put Black sci-fi on the map, was my gateway author into this particular section of media. I was so fascinated by Afrofuturism, I worked (really hard) on proving that Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was a precursor for the movement. Coined by Mark Derry, Afrofuturism opens a literal portal into picturing a futuristic landscape piloted by Black people, individuals, communities, and cultures. I AM HERE FOR IT.

-Janice

✨

📖 Where Can I Get a Copy?

• Check your local library to see if they have a copy.

• Support Queerthology or another independent bookstore by ordering through Bookshop.org.

• Feeling generous? Donate a copy to your fellow punks in need by using our registry.

✨ Links to Check Out

• So Many Voices, Singing: Review of The Black Fantastic - Ancillary Review of Books

• Library of America is publishing an Afrofuturist anthology - Transfer Orbit

• “A Continuum between Past, Present, and Future”: andré m. carrington on the Modern Flourishing of Afrofuturist Fiction - Library of America

• The Black Fantastic: The New Wave of Afrofuturist Fiction - Library of America Youtube

• Audiofuturism | andré m. carrington || Radcliffe Institute - Harvard Youtube

📚 Januaries Prior

• 2023 MAÑANA: Latinx Comics From The 25th Century by Power & Magic Press

• 2024 This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers Edited by Elias Jahshan

• 2025 Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction edited by Sonia Sulaiman